Here’s the ranking:
Average walking times over 18 metres (60 feet) in seconds
1) Singapore (Singapore); 10.55
2) Copenhagen (Denmark); 10.82
3) Madrid (Spain); 10.89
4) Guangzhou (China): 10.94
5) Dublin (Ireland); 11.03
6) Curitiba (Brazil); 11.13
7) Berlin (Germany); 11.16
8 ) New York (United States of America); 12.00
9) Utrecht (Netherlands); 12.04
10) Vienna (Austria); 12.06
11) Warsaw (Poland); 12.07
12) London (United Kingdom); 12.17
13) Zagreb (Croatia); 12.20
14) Prague (Czech Republic); 12.35
15) Wellington (New Zealand); 12.62
16) Paris (France); 12.65
17) Stockholm (Sweden); 12.75
18) Ljubljana (Slovenia); 12.76
19) Tokyo (Japan); 12.83
20) Ottawa (Canada); 13.72
21) Harare (Zimbabwe); 13.92
22) Sofia (Bulgaria); 13.96
23) Taipei (Taiwan): 14.00
24) Cairo (Egypt); 14.18
25) Sana’a (Yemen); 14.29
26) Bucharest (Romania); 14.36
27) Dubai (United Arab Emirates); 14.64
28) Damascus (Syria); 14.94
29) Amman (Jordan); 15.95
30) Bern (Switzerland); 17.37
31) Manama (Bahrain); 17.69
32) Blantyre (Malawi); 31.60
Can it be true? Do people in Japan really walk three times faster than Malawians? To find out, a Japanese TV show dispatched a comedian to Malawi:
Everything he observes seems to prove that the survey was correct:
- When crossing the street, everyone is quite slow. One can really see the difference when you compare it with footage of a Japanese crosswalk.
- Malawians have great difficulty walking on a treadmill set to the average Japanese walking speed.
- They set up an experiment. Three friends of their guide are told to meet them at a location approximately 800 meters from each of the friends’ houses. The friends are told to leave their houses at 10:00. Japanese real estate agents advertise 800 meters at a 10 minute walk, but that’s not how things are in Malawi. The earliest friend takes 26 minutes to arrive, the second friend takes 29 minutes, and the third takes 48 minutes. The friends say that it’s no big deal, since people in Malawi don’t stress over hurrying up or waiting for things.
- At a “fast food” restaurant, they order 9 burgers. There are a lot of staff in the kitchen, but none of them seem to be in a hurry to make anything. It takes 30 minutes to make eight burgers. They forget to make one of the burgers.
- They visit a school. It’s 10:10 and no teacher is in the classroom, even though class should have started at 10:00. They find the teacher, who says the students will just have to wait until he’s finished getting ready.
